Felix Felicis

Wow, I'm so lucky.

Nothing like a flood of support and advice to make you feel like you must have kissed the blarney stone at some point in your life. Or found a four-leaf clover. Or taken a swig of felix felicis. The best part was when today, I went to my usual tutoring session in North Tacoma. Usually, when I open the door and walk in yelling "hello!", I see my student sitting on the living room couch watching his after-school show, "Just Shoot Me". I throw myself on the couch and finish the episode with him, and then we go to the kitchen to do geometry for a couple of hours.

Today, however, when I walked in yelling "hello!" and peeked into the living room, there was no one there. Hm...so I wandered back into the kitchen and peered into the family room downstairs, and there he was, strumming on a guitar, but one that I hadn't seen before.

"Hey, new guitar?"

"Yup," said he. "Uncle Dave found it in a pawn shop. It only cost 70 bucks, but it plays real nice. He had to get the strings replaced because they were falling apart. But even with the bad strings, it sounded good!" He continued playing it, while I listened, wishing I was experienced enough with guitars to be able to appreciate the good-sounding ones from "cheesy-sounding" ones. I picked up his old black guitar and started strumming on that, but then suddenly, he stopped playing and handed the new guitar to me. "I'm just kidding, he got it for you. It's all yours."

Mine! I was so surprised, and man, I admit, I was like really touched at that moment. For the past couple months, after math, we'd go downstairs and play guitar together as sort of a way to unwind after a long grueling (grueling to him) math session, and I'd mentioned that I was interested in getting one, a really really cheap one, some time in the future. So his uncle had been searching all over craigslist, and tested out a bunch of guitars at a pawn shop to find one for me that was affordable but played decently. And so here I was, holding my very own guitar, new strings and everything, and chosen with care. I was so pleased that I tutored him for free today, and for 3.5 hours at that. Hey, he had a test coming, and I had to get him prepared! Ain't no messing around at Angie's Academy.

And guess what I'm naming the guitar? (See post title.)